CHAPTER 10

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CLARA GETS EVEN SHORTER

"Doctor, I said that I'm going back to see my family and I meant it. I'm going to tell them that we thought things over and changed our minds about going to America. Gran will believe that because she knows that I won't really want to leave my family behind forever," Clara said.

"Kore, I don't think that you should go anywhere until we're absolutely certain that you're alright. You don't want them to get their hopes up only to wind up being disappointed do you?" The Doctor asked.

Clara frowned as she said, "You sound like you're the one who's afraid of getting your hopes up, Doctor. Don't be. I'm alright."

"How can you be alright? You're been merged with a copy of yourself that was never supposed to have existed," The Doctor said in an extremely worried voice.

"Oh, well thanks a lot, Chinny. I guess I know which part of me that you prefer the most," Clara said.

"I didn't mean it like that. I loved Clara and I'm glad that she existed, but now what's left of her is destroying you. She wouldn't want that. She'd want you to be happy," The Doctor said.

Clara rolled her eyes as she said, "I'm pretty sure that I'm the only one who knows what I would want, Doctor, and right now I really would like it if you'd shut up and start listening to me. I am Clara Oswald and Kore Lungbarrow. They're both here talking to you right now. Yes, I had problems adjusting to having two people in my head, but now I'm slowly becoming one person since Clara really wasn't so different from Kore when you come down to it. We both love you and Susan after all, and we both think of Amy as our bratty little sister."

"Hey!" Amy said.

"Sorry, Giant Girl," Clara said with an evil smile.

"No, you're not. You're so going to pay for that later on," Amy said.

"Bet you're sorry that I came back now, huh?" Clara said laughing.

"No, I'll never be sorry for that even if you do drive me up the wall sometimes," Amy said in a serious tone.

Clara smiled at her in gratitude even as she continued her talk with the Doctor, "There are so many things that both parts of me can agree on that it's easy for us to come together and make the best of this new life of ours. We don't want to waste our time fighting for dominance with one another, Doctor. We want to spend it loving you. We are the same person after all. It's just that one of us grew up on Earth and the other on Gallifrey. It's like environment vs. heredity to a really insane degree, but I think that we both turned out alright in the end though despite that."

The Doctor's eyes began to tear up as he said, "I want to believe that but the facts say that something's going to happen to you because you merged. Rassilon was driven completely mad when it happened to him."

"Rassilon wasn't too sane to start with from what I remember reading about him, Doctor, so I don't think that had much to do with it. His two selves probably spent the whole time fighting one another because Rassilon couldn't admit to being second best to anyone not even himself. I have to admit that I like having lived on Earth too. Now I understand why you like humans so much after having been one of them. I never could really understand your interest in them before that. Remember? I always used to tease you about your love of Earth."

Amy looked at her curiously now as she said, "Why does he love Earth so much anyway? With all of time and space to choose from, why does he keep coming back to one planet over and over again for?"

"I always thought that maybe he was half-human or something," Rory said.

Everyone just looked at him as if he had lost his mind as he quickly said, "It would make perfect sense though. That would explain why he liked humans so much if he was part one himself."

"No, he's not human, Rory. Both of his parents were one hundred percent Time Lord," Clara said.

"Although I did manage to fool the Master into thinking that I was half-human once," The Doctor said with a fond smile on his face.

Clara laughed as she said, "How did he ever fall for that one? He grew up with you! I hate to say it since he's family, but he can be a bit of an idiot sometimes."

"You can say that again," The Doctor said as he looked at her with sadness and regret.

"I'm fine!" Clara shouted in frustration.

Amy sighed as she put her arm around a visibly upset Clara and said, "It's alright, Clara. Don't get so worked up about it. He's a bit thick but he'll figure out what we already know eventually. Just give him some time."

"Maybe we could take her to Earth like she wanted. That would give us all a nice break from things wouldn't it?" Rory suggested as he tried to diffuse the tense situation in the room.

"That sounds like a good idea, Dad. I want to go there anyway. It's about time that I left," River said.

Amy suddenly looked up in alarm as she said, "Why? I only just got you back again, and you already want to leave?"

"Melody, if this is because of me . . ." Clara started to say.

"No, it's not because of you, Clara. I know that you want me to stay. It's just that I've been cooped up in one place for so long now that I would really like to start exploring once again. I haven't been anywhere real, an actual place that wasn't just a construct of CAL's, for years. Now that I'm free and can travel again I'd like to see what's out there. I never could sit still in one time and place any more than the Doctor could," River said with a smile.

"It's not so bad. I didn't think that I would like it at first, but I eventually got used to it again. Melody, can't you stay at least a little while longer? I've missed you so much," Amy pleaded.

River hesitated now even as Clara said, "Stay, Melody. She wants to see you, and I like having you around. I finally have someone here who really understands what a handful the Doctor is. You and I can both team up now and keep Mr. Chin in his place."

River laughed as she said, "You seem to be doing a good job at that all by yourself."

"Melody, are you sure you're alright? I know if I was you I'd be devastated, and I don't want you to leave if you are. You need to stay and be around your family," Clara said.

River smiled and said, "I'm just fine, Clara. I promise. In fact, I know exactly where I'm going to go so I'm not exactly going to be wandering around wallowing in self-pity, alright?"

"How do you expect to go anywhere, River? You don't have any way to travel that I'm aware of," The Doctor asked her in a curious tone.

"Don't you worry about that, Doctor. I already have a way to get off of Earth that doesn't involve you. Just drop me off in London and I'll be fine," River said.

"Are you sure?" The Doctor asked.

"I'm always sure, Sweetie. Sorry. I guess I can't call you that anymore, can I?" River said.

"No, it's alright. I don't mind," Clara said.

"Good because I was going to keep calling him that anyway," River admitted making Clara laugh.

"Melody, are we going to see you again?" Amy asked.

"We don't want to lose touch with you again, Melody. We already did that for decades, and we don't ever want to go through that again. It devastated both of us to have to live what we thought were the rest of our lives without you," Rory added.

"Don't worry. I don't plan on staying away for long. I'll be by from time to time. I may even bring a visitor," River said.

"What do you mean by that?" Amy asked.

"Spoilers," River said with her usual enigmatic smile.

The Doctor couldn't help but think that River was going to be alright now as he watched her act just like she usually would so he said, "Alright. I'll drop you off in London. You want to go to the early twenty-first century I assume, right?"

River laughed as she said, "You know exactly what I'm going to do don't you?"

"Yes, and I just want to wish you luck," The Doctor said as he entered the coordinates on the console and sent the TARDIS on its way to Earth.

"After constantly escaping from Stormcage for years, I don't think that this is going to be much of a problem, Sweetie," River assured him.

"Well if you need any help, Professor Song, just give me a call," The Doctor said with a smile.

"Oh, I definitely will but not for help," River said with an evil grin.

The TARDIS materialized then and the Doctor said, "You do know that you won't be able to get it to work without the . . ."

River smirked as she said, "Do you really think that I wouldn't already know it?"

The Doctor smiled as he said, "No, I suppose not."

River smiled as she put her arms around him and said, "I don't suppose that I could get one last kiss for the road, could I?"

The Doctor looked at Clara with an uncertain look on his face as Clara said, "Go ahead. It's alright."

"I guess a little peck on the lips won't hurt," The Doctor said as he moved his face towards River's and gave her a quick kiss.

"Not so fast," River said as she then smiled evilly and yanked him back towards her again while she turned his short kiss into a passionate one instead. The Doctor immediately pulled himself away from her with a shocked look on his face as she laughed at him.

"It's the last one ever so I had to make it a good one, didn't I? Well, I suppose I'll go now before Clara commits homicide. I'll see you around, Sweetie. Maybe it'll be sooner than you think," River said.

She then smiled and walked out of the TARDIS without another word.

"I didn't know that she was going to do that," The Doctor said to Clara with a guilty look on his face as soon as River shut the doors behind her.

"I know, Chin Boy. It's fine. Everything's fine," Clara said in a terse voice.

"Really? Is that why you're gripping the console so hard that you're leaving marks in it with your fingernails?" Amy said.

"I said I'm fine. She deserved one last kiss with him and she got one. End of story," Clara said in an irritated voice.

Then she let out a deep breath and said in a calmer voice, "I'm fine. So where are we going next, Doctor?"

"I'm going to take you to see your family if you're still sure that's what you want to do," The Doctor said.

"I'm sure, Doctor. Susan, do you want to come? I know that you can't admit to being my granddaughter without me having to tell them the truth about myself, but I'd at least like you to meet them," Clara said.

"I'd like that. Are you ever going to tell them the truth? Do you think that they'd understand?" Susan asked out of curiosity.

"I'm not sure. I think I'll try to someday but not today, Susan. Definitely not today. I'm just not ready for it yet," Clara said.

"Well, whenever you are, Grandmother, I'll go with you then too," Susan offered.

Clara smiled at her in appreciation as she said, "Thank you, Susan. I might just take you up on that because I'm really going to need some support then."

"I'll be there too," The Doctor said.

"Yes, I know but I'm going to need all of the support that I can get when the time comes to try to explain all of this to my dad, Doctor. I'm really not looking forward to that at all," Clara said.

"You think he'll reject you?" Amy asked.

"No, I think he'll think that I've gone mad," Clara admitted.

"Been there. Try not to get too angry if it happens. It only convinces them of it more. Oh, and don't bite anyone. That really doesn't help your case any," Amy said.

"I wasn't planning on it, Amy, but that's good to know for future reference," Clara said with a chuckle.

"Right then. Now that we've decided what we're going to do I'll take you to your dad's house," The Doctor said as he dematerialized the TARDIS.

Then he frowned as he started to rapidly push buttons and turn knobs while continuing to look at the display. The others could tell immediately that something was wrong.

Clara joined him at the console and let out a groan as she said, "She's being an Old Cow again."

"What do you mean by that? What's going on? Explain," Amy asked.

Clara smiled smugly as she said, "I can't tell you how much I enjoy actually knowing what's going on now. Just think, Chin Boy. That used to be me not too long ago."

"Tell me what's going on, Shorty, before I wipe that smile off of your face," Amy threatened.

"Perhaps you'd better tell her. She tends to start hitting people when she's angry," Rory said.

"What's the matter, Rory? Afraid you'll be one of those people?" Clara said with a giggle.

"No, that's definitely going to be you if you keep this up, Soufflé Girl," Amy promised.

"Alright, Legs, don't get your knickers all in a twist. I was just winding you up for a while. I wanted to know what it felt like to be the Doctor and to have all the answers. I have to tell you that it felt pretty good. I also know how bad it feels to be the one left completely in the dark though so here goes. The TARDIS is acting up. She's giving off some weird readings that say that we're losing mass," Clara said.

"Which means what exactly? Translate for those of us who don't speak TARDIS," Amy said as she began to grow even more irritated.

"It's no big deal, Ames. It just means that she's developed a fault. That's all it is. It's nothing life threatening. There's no way that we could be losing mass. There's only one time that something like that could ever happen, and there are several safety protocols in place to keep us from ever doing that," Clara said.

Then she grimaced as she said, "Oh, my stars. I can't believe that I just said something like that. That is so not me. I've never been Technical Girl."

"That's true. When I first met you, you didn't even know how to use the WiFi. You've certainly come a long way since then," The Doctor remembered fondly.

"What? Everybody knows how to use WiFi?" Amy said with a chuckle.

"Shut up. I know all about temporal physics and quantum mechanics now so . . . in your face," Clara said.

Susan laughed as she said, "I think I'm going to like this new version of you, Grandmother. You were always funny, but this version of you is just like Grandfather now."

"Yes, extremely childish," Amy commented.

"Oi! I just couldn't think of what to say. I'm nowhere near as bad as he is," Clara protested.

"Clara, what did you mean about there being only one time that we could be losing mass?" Rory asked in a worried tone.

"What? Oh, it's nothing. If the safety protocols were ever turned off, then the TARDIS might develop a fault with its dimensional stabilizer. That's when it could accidentally start shrinking with us still inside of it. Then we'd start losing mass. We'd probably wind up being the size of insects which is why the safeties are there to keep that from happening. Man, that sounds weird coming out of my mouth," Clara said.

"Uh, Grandmother?" Susan said as she suddenly remembered something from long ago.

"What is it, Susan?" Clara asked as she saw a terrified look suddenly come over her granddaughter's face.

"Once when I was still traveling with Grandfather the first time we . . ." Susan started to say.

"Yes, yes. Something happened once a long, long time ago, but that's far in the past now. There's no need to alarm anyone, Susan. I'm sure that nothing like that is going on this time. That never happened again. It was only a one-time thing," The Doctor said as he quickly interrupted her.

"What was she going to say, Doctor?" Clara demanded.

"It was nothing," The Doctor said dismissively.

"No, it wasn't. I can always tell when you're lying to me. Let her finish her story, Raggedy Man," Amy said.

The Doctor sighed as he said, "Fine. Once the TARDIS developed a fault similar to but not the same as this one, and Susan, Ian, Barbara, and I wound up shrunken down to the size of insects and so was the TARDIS. Everything turned out alright in the end though so it wasn't that bad."

"How did this happen, Susan?" Clara asked.

"Grandfather turned off the safeties," Susan said with a wince as she awaited Clara's imminent explosion of anger.

"Why would you do that?" Clara asked in a tone that told the Doctor that she was barely keeping her temper under control now.

"I was working on the console and I needed to turn the safeties off in order to get to certain things so that I could fix them. If you must know, I was trying to fix the Chameleon Circuit at the time," The Doctor protested.

"Yeah, well I can see how that turned out. What about this time? Are you working on the Chameleon Circuit again?" Clara demanded.

"No, it's not the same situation at all. I was just trying to repair a fault in the sensor array. It had been glitching lately," The Doctor said nervously.

"Did you turn the safeties off for that, Doctor?" Clara asked.

The Doctor slowly backed away from her as he said, "I may have switched one or two of them off for a bit."

Clara immediately slapped him in the face so hard that even Amy winced in sympathy as she said, "So help me if we wind up shrunken I'm going to give you an even harder one than that. From now on you are never, ever to switch off the safeties again. Got it?"

The Doctor looked at her in disbelief as he said, "Kore?"

"What?" Clara asked in a furious voice.

"It is still you, isn't it? It really is. Somehow you're still there and Clara didn't replace you or vice versa. You're not going mad at all are you? You're still just the same as you ever were. Only you would ever look at me with that much anger," The Doctor realized.

"Only you could ever bring that much anger out of me, Doctor. I'm usually a very sweet person," Clara said in an acid-filled tone that was practically oozing with venom even as part of her leapt for joy at his words.

He had finally accepted her at last!

"Yeah, it really sounds like it alright," Amy said laughing.

"Don't even try to start on me right now, Legs. Just don't. You'd be a major hypocrite if you do anyway," Clara said.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Amy asked while Rory backed away from her.

Amy turned to look at him as she asked, "What did she mean by that? Is she saying that I'm not sweet?"

"That's ridiculous. You're the sweetest person I know," Rory quickly said.

"That's right. I am," Amy said.

"You must not know too many people, Roman Boy," Clara quipped causing Susan to laugh.

Before Amy could protest this, the TARDIS suddenly materialized and landed with an enormous thud. Then it started being shaken violently from left to right.

"What's happening?" Rory asked in an alarmed tone as he had to quickly grab Amy to keep her from being flung across the room even while he held onto one of the railings for dear life.

The Doctor was holding onto the console as he turned the monitor on. His jaw dropped open in disbelief as he saw what was going on outside now.

He could see the face of a baby peering down at the TARDIS and slowly moving it towards its mouth. Then the full horror of what was going on finally hit him as he realized that the baby was using the TARDIS as a pacifier!

Clara started laughing now as she said, "If I wasn't being flung about like a bloody ping pong ball I'd think that this was really cute."

"This is not cute! My TARDIS is not a chew toy!" The Doctor said indignantly.

"It looks like she is now, Chinny. At least she is until you fix her back anyway so get working on it pronto," Clara said.

"I just hope that the baby doesn't try to eat us," Amy said warily.

"Me too. The Old Cow would probably choke the poor thing going down," Clara said.

The TARDIS beeped in protest as Clara said, "Shut up you. It's your fault anyway for letting him turn off your safeties. You don't always have to do whatever he wants you to do you know?"

"I think I like this new angrier, even bossier you, Clara. You don't take anything from anyone," Amy said with an approving grin.

"Yes, you would, Pond. Now I know that she's definitely the same old Kore. Kore could be very sweet but she could also get very angry as well," The Doctor said.

"I can't imagine why," Clara said with a frown.

Suddenly the image on the monitor changed and the TARDIS was shown being grabbed by a much larger adult hand this time. It was a woman's hand the Doctor noted as he saw it.

"Where did that come from? Where did you get that?" A woman's voice said to the baby in a frightened tone.

The baby only cooed in response while the woman looked at the TARDIS closely. They could all see her large eye inspecting it on the monitor.

"I don't know who left this lying around but if I ever get ahold of them I'm really going to give them a piece of my mind! You could have choked on this. I have to get rid of it right away," The voice, which the Doctor now realized sounded very familiar to him, said.

Then it hit him at last exactly who she was. It was a very young sounding Jackie Tyler. That baby must have been Rose!

"If this is another one of Pete's stupid inventions, I'm going to wring his neck. The nerve of that man leaving this thing out where the baby could get to it! He could have killed her. Right. This is going in the garbage right away. That'll teach him to leave things lying around from now on," Jackie said as she threw the TARDIS in a garbage bag and sealed it up.

"Doctor, please tell me that you can get us out of here before we're thrown away," Amy said as the monitor went black.

The Doctor smiled at her with a guilty look on his face as he said, "Yeah, about that. It appears that the TARDIS may have been damaged when it developed that fault. We can't dematerialize anymore until I fix it."

"I am so going to kill you," Amy said in a furious voice.

"Oh, no you don't, Ames. I call first dibs on that," Clara said as she advanced on the Doctor threateningly.

"Be my guest by all means. Just remember to leave some of him left over for me afterwards," Amy said.

The Doctor began to slowly back away from the wrathful look in Clara's eyes even as in another time and place River Song successfully broke into the Black Archive in UNIT HQ and stole Jack Harkness' Vortex Manipulator right from under their noses. She then put the activation code into it and was gone before anyone had even noticed that she was there.

River smiled now as she reappeared in front of a bewildered looking man who was very familiar to her. He looked at her in surprise even as a welcome smile came over his face.

"Professor Song, what are you doing here? Not that I'm complaining. I would have been trapped here in this one time and place forever if you hadn't come along," The Ganger Doctor said with a relieved look on his face

"Oh, I just thought that I'd come by and see how you were doing. I'm sure that the Doctor never bothered to come back and see if you had actually survived or not. He did tell you that there was a chance that you might live, didn't he?" River asked.

"Yes, he did. I thought he was lying actually. We do that," The Ganger admitted.

"Yes, you certainly do but in this case he turned out to actually be telling the truth for once. Now I'm here to reunite you with him. He's really going to need you after all," River said.

"Why? What's he done?" The Ganger asked in a knowing tone.

"Oh, he's taken the safeties off of the TARDIS and she's been shrunken down again. Now we have to go rescue him before he's lost in a landfill somewhere forever or worse. Before we do though," River said.

Then she grabbed the Ganger by the shoulder and gave him a long passionate kiss. She smiled as he looked at her in complete bewilderment afterwards.

"Now let's get to work, Sweetie," River said as she grabbed his arm and used the Vortex Manipulator to swiftly take both of them out of there.

Next: It's River and the Ganger Doctor to the rescue. Can they save the Doctor and company from being thrown away by an unsuspecting Jackie Tyler? Of course you know that it's not going to be anywhere near as easy as it sounds. It never is after all.